


In Your Heart Shall Burn

by lyriumlovesong



Series: The Rabbit and The Lion [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - In Your Heart Shall Burn, F/M, Falling In Love, Haven (Dragon Age), Healing, Hurt, Hypothermia, Injury, Mages (Dragon Age), Mages and Templars, Major Character Injury, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 15:49:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17327936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyriumlovesong/pseuds/lyriumlovesong





	In Your Heart Shall Burn

Little flakes swirl through the air around him, blowing on gusts of wind that cut through the trees.

Some of them are snow. Most of it is ash raining down from the sky, carried on the wind from the village of Haven, still smoldering in the distance. He tries not to think of the people there—his soldiers, his  _friends—_ reduced to masses of charred bone by now, trapped in buildings or cut down by the enemy and left where they lay. He cannot allow himself to be distracted by mourning. Not yet.

It's been hours now, and they've still seen no sign of their Herald.

His eyes burn but he keeps them wide, searching through the dense gray haze. He can feel his guts churning, dread eating away at his insides as he wills his aching legs to keep going, trudging as fast as he can through drifts that reach past his ankles.

He shouts her name for the thousandth time, so raw from it that every breath of the frigid, smoke-filled air is agony in his throat. A cough wracks his chest and he tastes copper and ash on his tongue. He keeps moving, shouting, searching. Praying.

Just when it seems hopeless, when all he wants to do is sink to his knees in the snow and curse his Maker in despair, he sees it—a dark lump against the blanket of white, and a subtle green glow. Pulling strength he didn’t think he had left from somewhere deep within, he breaks into a run.

Snow flies in an arc from his feet as he skids to a stop beside her, bending down.

He lifts her head and draws a ragged breath.

_  
Please be alive. Please._

  
He waits for the space of a heartbeat, and then the tiniest puff of white vapor issues from her lips. Relief washes over him as he unfastens his mantle, ignoring the bitterly cold wind now slicing through his clothes like icy knives. He wraps the fur around her, scooping her up and cradling her against his chest.

He’s sprinting now, sweat pouring from him and freezing on his skin, muscles on fire as he makes his way back toward the others who have spread out to look.

The sound of his voice echoes off the trees as he bellows hoarsely that he’s found her. People materialize from the forest, jogging to try to keep up with him as he barrels back into the camp, shouting for a mage.

The surgeon's makeshift infirmary is full of the wounded and dying. He bursts into his own tent instead and lays her on his bedroll next to a lit brazier, waiting for help to come, not knowing what to do. 

Mother Giselle enters, barely visible behind an armful of bandages and blankets. She asks him once, gently, to leave.

For the first time in his life, he disobeys a Revered Mother. She looks at his face, and she does not ask again.

More people enter, bringing potions and salves. Their outlines are blurred by the mist in his eyes.

 _From the smoke,_  he tells himself as he blinks it away and wrings his numb hands, trying to keep out of the way but reluctant to step too far from her side.

Underneath her armor, her clothes are stiff sheets of fabric frozen in folds against her skin. He offers Mother Giselle a sharp pocket knife and averts his eyes as she carefully cuts and strips the garments away, but not before he catches a glimpse of freckled flesh tinted blue with cold.

He leans out of the tent, opens his mouth to scream for a mage again, but Leliana is already escorting the Tevinter toward him, both of them running to cross the camp.

He eyes the man with suspicion—he’d have preferred the apostate. He might not fully trust him, but at least he knows Solas. But he steps aside to allow the mage through, even as his look of mistrust is answered in kind. He’s seen this man heal soldiers he’d have thought were bound for death, in the battle back at Haven. He wills all his misgivings about magic away for the moment, begging the man with his eyes.  _Just save her, I don’t care what it takes._  
  
Mother Giselle has her under a mountain of warm covers now. The Tevinter pulls them back, examining her body.

This time he doesn’t look away. Where her skin isn’t blue, it’s blotched with black and purple, or else marred with deep gashes that bleed freely, blooming crimson on the woolen blankets as they’re peeled away.

“More than a few bones broken. A nasty whack on the head, as well.”  

The words come to him through a fog, as though his ears are stuffed with cotton.

“Can you help her?”

The mage looks at Mother Giselle, uncertainty twisting his mouth into a frown.

“I sense no mortal wounds. But she’s been cold like this for a long time. I’ll do what I can. The rest is up to the Maker.”

They watch his hands rove over her body, illuminating her skin under their ethereal violet light. His spells look nothing like the gentle verdant glow he’s seen from the apostate. This magic glimmers and flickers, as if reigniting the very spark of life within her.

She doesn’t move, but the steadying rise and fall of her breathing brings hope fluttering to his chest.

When the Tevinter has done all he can, he removes the bloody blankets from the bottom of the pile and covers her with clean ones.

“She needs warmth now, more than anything. And time.” He pauses, glancing back at her unconscious form. “And a bit of a miracle, if you’ve got one of those to call in.”

The two men lock eyes for a brief moment, each still wary of the other but acknowledging in that glance a temporary truce.

As the mage takes his leave, Mother Giselle bows her head, asking aloud for the Maker to bring back their Herald--their only hope against the Breach--from the edge of the abyss.

He knows she’s praying not for the life of the little Dalish elf lying there on his bed, but for their deliverance. If it weren’t for the mark on her hand, some of these people would have been content to leave her to die with the others.

He closes his own eyes and makes an unspoken plea, hands clasped so tight his knuckles are whitening, feeling finally prickling back into his fingertips in the warmth of the tent.  _Please, Maker. Don’t take her from me. Let me hear her laugh again._

The Revered Mother exits the tent before he looks up from his prayer.

Kneeling next to the bed, he wraps his hands around the elf’s cold fingers. His are hardly warmer, but he blows hot breath between them, desperate for anything that may help.

He doesn’t register the passage of time as the minutes bleed into hours. A full day passes outside his tent.

His back aches, but he doesn’t leave her side, sitting on the frozen, unyielding ground next to the bedroll. People come and go, bringing her freshly warmed covers and clean bandages, leaving him food and cups of tea that grow cold as it all sits untouched. His friends try to make quiet conversation, asking after the Herald, giving him permission to abandon his vigil for a moment’s rest and sustenance. He declines.

Instead, he watches the rhythm of her chest continuing to rise and fall under the heap of blankets, every shaking wheeze that escapes her cracked lips bringing him comfort--proof that she’s still there.

He’s the first thing she sees when she comes to. His own breath catches in his lungs as her bleary green eyes search his form, unfocused at first. Then they meet his, recognition dawning on her face. Her mouth curls into a soft grin.

She murmurs something he can’t quite make out. 

He leans over her, putting his ear so close to her mouth that he can feel a whisper of warm air tingle against his skin as she repeats herself.

“Do you think I was loud enough?”

His eyes sting again as he smiles at her, and this time there is no smoke for him to lay the blame upon.


End file.
